Adults don’t really understand what it’s like to grow up in the age of the iPhone. I’ve seen plenty of grown-ups struggle to make sense of the role of mobile computing and social media in our society and their own lives, but we need to always remind ourselves that these tools are all our kids have ever known. Fox 59 featured a new book yesterday called Teaching the iGeneration, which attempts to help teachers educate the latest generation of iKids:

You know what the iGeneration in your classroom looks like. They are the students willing to experiment their way through anything, confident that trial and error can crack the code better than reading manuals or following directions. They’re turning to the Internet first and the library second when assigned research projects. Their minds are working fast, but not always as deeply or as accurately as the adults in their lives would like. Yet teachers can capture the attention of the iGeneration and help them grow by integrating technology into classrooms in a way that focuses on the skills that have been important for decades. The purpose of Teaching the iGeneration is to help teachers find the natural overlap between the work that they already believe in and the kinds of digital tools that are defining tomorrow’s learning. Each chapter introduces an enduring skill information fluency, persuasion, communication, collaboration, and problem solving as well as a digital solution that can be used to enhance, rather than replace, traditional skill-based instructional practices.

My law students are glued to their Macbooks during class, no doubt, but I wouldn’t consider them the iGeneration. Has anyone who works with K-12 students read this book? Was it useful for your classroom?